rt73usb problem ?

I'm more or less (less on a bad day) using an ASUS WL-167G v2 USB adapter on my PogoWeather Station (running Squeeze) ...

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0b05:1723 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. WL-167G v2 802.11g Adapter [Ralink RT73]

I'm experiencing daily dropouts of connectivity.


I've not gone for more that 36 hours w/o needing to reboot the Pogo. Right now I have a script set up to ping several servers every few minutes and either restart networking services (this seems to fix it sometimes), and when that doesn't do it, I have it reboot (this almost always works,s but not always).

When connectivity fails, I sometimes see this in the logs:

rt2x00usb: Vendor Request 0x07 failed

repeated over & over...

Has anyone else seen this?

If so, how did you fix it?

I've seen a hint to try a newer kernel (I'm running 2.6.32.x - the original kernel in the Squeeze setup).

Has anyone tried

iwconfig wlan0 power off

as a fix?


Maybe using nohwcrypt option for rt73usb?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2011 06:46PM by davygravy.

OK, after doing quite a bit of sifting and googling, I think I found it...

The power management feature for the rt73usb seems like it indeed does have something to do w/ dropouts in connectivity, at least w/ the ready-made/supplied/default kernel that is used w/ the debootstrap script used at this site (2.6.32-5-kirkwood). When I turn it off, I have no problems whatsoever w/ dropouts - two days up and not a single hiccup.

from the command line:

iwconfig wlan0 power off

from within /etc/network/interfaces ... [see last line in the code below]

root@pogodebian:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo eth0
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
	address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
	netmask 255.255.0.0
	gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
	wpa-ssid xxxxxxx
	wpa-psk xxxxxxxxxxxx
        wireless-power off

This seems to fix it perfectly. If it doesn't, I'll post back.

Update: No more dropped connections, no more loss of connectivity, ZERO problems since turning power management off. Problem solved.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2011 07:38AM by davygravy.

I know this thread is a bit old, but it is exactly what i was looking for...
I have an old Dlink Usb dongle that i use for my the Raspberry Pi - it uses the same chipset though -
And sometimes the SSh dies... I read somewhere that it was power management... and i couldnt figure out how to turn it off... I hope it works...
If it does.. THANK YOU!!!
else... oh well ill just have to keep looking!